Traditionally, the status of workers in early childhood services in England has been low. Foundation degrees and the Early Years Professional Status (EYPS, from September 2013 Early Years Teacher Status) were established with a view to improving the skills and standing of early years practitioners. There appears however to be an ongoing…

This article discusses a project designed to build a community of enquiry in the first year of a foundation degree in early years at an English university. Derived originally from Lipman's ideas of Philosophy for Children, this approach became a regular part of the fortnightly session for these early childhood practitioners, in order to…

In Australia, all vocational education and training (VET) qualifications must be based on competency-based training (CBT) and training packages. Yet, since 2005, there has been a major expansion in the number of VET international students in Australia, 85% of whom are from Asia. Given this development, the teaching and learning contexts in which…

This article aims to study the adoption of national curricula by vocational teachers. In the paper, we review the process of vocational education and training curriculum reform in Estonia over the last 20 years, and, in particular, the introduction of national curricula. As teachers should be considered the key agents of curricular change, we look…

This paper sheds light on how competence assessment takes place in the Danish Vocational and Educational Training System. It discusses how intentions formulated by the government have unintentional effects when implemented in practice. The qualitative methods used in this study consist of participant observations from my field study of dropouts in…

Very little research has been conducted on the teaching of entrepreneurship, in particular in vocational education. Entrepreneurship is included in the national curriculum of many European countries, but there is concern over the competence of its teachers and their training in entrepreneurship (European Commission 2009, 14). This article explores…

This article describes a study on teachers' perceptions of the coaching role in innovative secondary vocational education (SVE) in the Netherlands. Data from 109 teachers were collected by means of an online questionnaire, asking for their associations with the coaching role, goals concerning the coaching role, and typical coaching activities.…

This article is based on research data from students and tutors associated with the Early Years Sector-Endorsed Foundation Degree at six UK Higher Education Institutions. A main finding is that pedagogical practitioners in early years regard the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) for learning and teaching activities with…

Shifts in UK social and economic policy have focused on education and care in the Early Years as key to improving social inclusion, skills acquisition and longer term social and economic prosperity. The implications for practitioners in the sector have been significant as roles, functions and foci have been renegotiated through the processes of…

To meet the requirements of an increasingly innovative and competitive environment, workers need to continuously develop and maintain competence. Consequently, initial vocational education and training should prepare (future) workers by providing a basis for lifelong learning in developing both routine and flexible competence. The question is…

It has been argued that the culture and traditions of secondary schooling explicitly exclude vocational learning from the mission of secondary schools. Analyses have further highlighted the role played by vocational learning in sifting and sorting students by social background. In many continental systems, Germany, France or Italy for example, the…

This paper is based on findings from a three-year longitudinal study in England called the Teacher Study which aimed to provide an analytical description of who Skills for Life (SfL) teachers are and what they do in their working lives. The main focus of the paper is teachers' career pathways and the possibilities of making a career in…

This article examines the development of teacher training for teachers in technical and further education in England through the memories of the staff of Bolton Technical Teachers College, one of the first national centres set up for this purpose. After a brief account of the origins and the development of the college up to its merger with the…

Dutch prevocational secondary schools are reforming their educational programmes to make them more competence-based. This reform has substantial implications for the roles played by teachers. Yet, little empirical research has been conducted on teachers' processes of competence development in vocational settings. This study explores teachers'…

Teachers, students and professionals have confirmed the need to introduce skills into business administration and accounting education in Spain. However, this change has not taken place at any desirable level. This paper uses the New Institutional Sociology (NIS) to analyse the pressures to introduce the policy that consists of the incorporation…